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indoor propagation

Once the plants get a couple of true leaves, I take them out of the propagation domes and place them under the lights. They toughen up in about a week. Then I transplant them, and move them back under the domes for a week or two until they get established in their new pots. Then they get moved out of the propagation domes again, and either under the lights or in the unheated greenhouse, depending on what time of year it is. Losses with this method are almost nil, even with little prima donnas like fringed Gentian.

Yet for some reason the relay contacts would occasionally get stuck in the closed position and not de-energize the system resulting in the system overheating several times. They replaced the unit free of charge, but even the replacement unit did the same thing."

Maybe the problem was inrush current. When you first apply power to an incandescent lamp, the current is 9 - 15 times higher than the rated lamp current. That can weld the contacts on a relay. http://www.powerbox.info/SSL/inRushCurrent.asp

One way to fix it would be to divide your incandescent circuit into two parallel paths with half of the lamps in each one, controlled by two separate relay contacts. Now the inrush current is half what it was before.

Another way to fix it is to use a proportional temperature controller. I really like this, but it's expensive. It will vary the power to the lamps to keep the temperature constant, as measured by a thermistor or some other sensor. This means that the lamps won't get turned completely on and off, which greatly reduces their life and causes inrush current.

It is to bad there is no continuation on this topic, looking at all the seed starting chronicles, it would be nice to see how everybody is germinating and root cuttings, what do you use, like lights, shelves, greenhouse, cold frame, etc.

I do a lot of seeding and cuttings under lights and in the greenhouse, and will get some pictures posted of my setup in the next few days.

I will try to add a picture as this is the first time adding a picture to a post.

My setup is very much like yours - a wood-frame shelf system. Looks like yours is much bigger though!

The bases of the shelves on mine are sheets of anodized aluminum (not that it matters to anything). A difference with my setup is that each shelf has two four-foot fluorescent light ballasts suspended over it on chains from the frame of the next shelf above; this allows the lights to be lowered down to sit directly on top of the plant trays, and to be raised as the plants grow.

I'll try to add a picture, though it's not so terribly photogenic! ;-)

Edit: Here's one.

Looks like you have a lot growing! It would be great to hear about your germination and growing efforts, either in this thread or in the Seed-Starting Chronicles thread.

I use T5's 3 in a row and 6 for each 8 ft of shelf. I will do a reading as per foot candles and post it later. I have enough room for 72 flats there are 2 rows of them.I also use it for growing some geraniums, ivy's, fuchias etc.for my summer planters outside

When you hit "Reply" to this message, scroll down in the page to Embedded Images. After you Choose File and then hit Upload and then Insert (to show your photo in the text box), you will see that another "Add new file" box opens underneath the one you just used. It works exactly the same as the first one. So with each photo you add, another box opens in Embedded Images to let you add another photo. I don't know what the limit in number of photos is.